


The Law of Falling Bodies

by vegarin



Series: The Law of Falling Bodies [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 21:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegarin/pseuds/vegarin
Summary: Spoilers for Season 3. The three-way fight in 3x13 ends differently, and Matt deals with the fallout.





	The Law of Falling Bodies

 

Matt wakes up to a scream.

The blood-curdling scream, inexplicable in its intensity, pierces through his head and yanks him back into awareness. There’s a loud ringing in his ears, in his head. There’s little he can make sense of in the surroundings. He breathes in the air chocked with dust and steeped in copper. An enclosed space, with decayed and rundown machinery. A factory. A faint smell and whispers of the water. Somewhere close to the pier.

But for the moment, none of it feels familiar or knowable. Not just where he is, but how of it, and why he's here, one hand handcuffed to a metal shaft jutting out from the wall behind him.

And in this confined, foreign space, the scream still ricochets.

Matt breathes in, ignoring the sharp pain in his chest, and focuses. There’s another sound of stuttering heartbeats in the far corner. Once detected, it’s startling in its familiarity.

Benjamin Poindexter.

Poindexter's collapsed against the far wall, face wrapped up in his arms. His scream, cut off abruptly, seems to reverberate in his throat, in his chest.

He's unmoving and still, in a sharp contrast to the moments that surface from Matt's splintered memory—Poindexter's savage and triumphant yell, overlapping with the last beat of Fisk’s heart before it gave way to silence.

The utter stillness it wrought, until Vanessa Fisk's scream marred that very silence.

And Poindexter, stepping on Fisk's blood, standing over Matt.

Matt remembers, then: _Fisk is dead._

To feel relief now would be treacherous. To feel relief in that he did not take a life, even Fisk's. But Fisk, and all the threats—and all of the evil—that the man represents, are no longer.

At that knowledge, the weight over Matt, suffocating and all-crushing, dissipates, and Matt feels—unmoored. Unraveled.

Except.

Except Fisk is dead; Poindexter isn't.

And neither is Matt.

The thought propels Matt into action, beginning with assessing his injuries. His right ankle feels fractured, and his left shoulder is clearly disclosed. He can hear a grinding sound from the hollow of his ribcage— _broken ribs_ , he thinks. _At least three._ His face and hands are wet with trickling blood. Maybe internal hemorrhaging. Cuts and bruises, beyond numbering. None of it suggests he would be able to free himself from the handcuff.

And even if he could free himself, Poindexter only seems to suffer flesh wounds. In another match, the result would be, at best, unfavorable to Matt.

Matt almost smiles. It's just as ever, then.

He pulls at the handcuffs to wrench himself free. Once. Twice. The shaft doesn't budge, but the move, predictably, sends a searing pain up his spine and all the way to his right shoulder. He digs fingernails into his palms to stop himself from hissing in pain.

To no avail. Poindexter, without looking up, speaks: "Not dead yet, then."

The dull voice echoes hollowly along the edges of the walls. No longer fueled by rage, Poindexter seems like a battered wind-up toy suddenly ground to a halt.

"No," Matt answers, suppressing the pain still threatening to seize up his body. "And why is that?"

No answer. Matt adds, "Would've been simple enough to kill me at the penthouse. Or leave me there. Why all this?" The handcuffs clang against the metal shaft behind him.

For a long moment, there's only stilted silence.

It occurs to Matt, then, that Poindexter may not know the answer himself.

"Maybe I prefer to be around to watch you bleed out," Poindexter says eventually, something close to a sneer in his voice.

"Not quite your style."

"You know _nothing_ about me." It's almost a snarl, with teeth of a saw made blunt. And there's a sudden sharp pain; a pebble hits the wall behind Matt, leaving a thin arch of blood on his cheek.

"Ah," says Matt.

"Ah, _what_?" Poindexter snaps, oddly frustrated.

"Target practice. That's more your style."

Matt fully expects to be pierced with more projectiles. What he doesn't expect is a sudden snort, leading to an eventual, unhinged laugh.

It's not his first time waking up being tied in chains by a mentally unstable killer. Foggy may have one or two choice words to say about the company Matt keeps, and maybe about how he ought to be better at dealing with it by now.

But Matt isn't, and he's just as unprepared when the unsettling laugh trails to a stop.

Poindexter pushes himself off the wall and slowly, almost methodically, saunters over to stand over Matt.

"Matt Murdock," he says, drawing out each word. He is, improbably and indecipherably, gleeful. "Boy, did Fisk want you bad. Guess I know why now."

His mask, Matt realizes belatedly, is long gone. So is Poindexter's own Daredevil mask.

"A blind lawyer, a fugitive wanted by FBI," Poindexter says, ticking off each finger. " _And_ a famed masked vigilante. You're one busy man."

With a flick of his wrist, Poindexter waves at Matt's face.

"Really can't see, huh?" says Poindexter, sounding reluctantly impressed. "You've got some neat tricks, there."

"I can say the same to you," Matt counters.

"Now, it's not everyday one gets a compliment from the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Well, then, while we're in this sharing mood, lemme ask a question to the counselor."

Poindexter crouches in front of him, as if trying to stay level with Matt's non-existent eyesight. "You could've let Fisk kill me, but you stopped him." There's almost manic mirth in his voice. "Now, why would anyone do that?"

Matt considers the question, flips it around its corners. Why indeed. He almost wants to ask himself the very same thing: why did you intervene when Fisk intended to break Poindexter in half and got your own ribs cracked for the trouble?

"While you're thinking on your answer, here's another. You could've let me kill Fisk, but you tried to save him instead."

Matt did try, for all the good it did.

"It's just strange, isn't it?" Poindexter asks, almost conversationally. "Why would anyone do that?"

 _Because I still believe in justice_ , Matt may have said, and it may not have been true. Because God knows, for so long, he had wanted Fisk dead. And another voice in Matt would still say—killing Fisk, or killing this man in front of him, it may still have served justice, but neither would have been right.

But no answer would suffice, not to Poindexter.

Matt doesn't answer, but it doesn't seem to bother Poindexter in the slightest. "I mean, just think about it. Why would anyone do that, huh? After all the trouble he went through to _use me to get to Fisk."_

 _He's fast_ , Matt almost absently notes, even as Poindexter suddenly sends a vicious kick down Matt's chest.

Something in Matt's chest fractures into a fine lattice of cracks, and he coughs blood. He brings up his free arm, but it's not enough to block the blows aimed exactly where he's hurt.

"Now, why would anyone do that?" Poindexter asks again. And kicks. Once, twice, and again. He stops only to wrap his hands around Matt's throat to drag him up. "Would you care to answer that, counselor?"

Between Poindexter's erratic, harsh breathing, Matt reads feverish agitation. _Like a cornered animal,_ Matt thinks, _wounded and made brittle._

Fisk is dead. When he turned Poindexter against Fisk, he'd known that this was one of the ways it could've ended. Matt had known that, just as well that what it might have meant.

It hadn't stopped Matt. And now.

And now.

"You're right," Matt tells him, between slow, painful gasps for air. "I used you."

Matt could read the surprise between Poindexter's heartbeats. The grip around Matt's neck loosens.

"I wanted to stop Fisk." Matt coughs into his free hand; it's sticky with blood. "And you deserved to know. To know what you really did when you followed his orders."

Father Lantom. Matt's breath still catches at the grief still so raw, at the loss so senseless.

And Agent Nadeem. _Ray._ He was a good man, and had meant so well. If it had been Matt—with a family he loved dearly and endless financial problems, of Fisk's masking, gnawing at your heels—he might've been cornered to make the exact same choice.

There is a chill, numbness that reaches the edges of Matt's fingertips.

“You’ve killed good people. Because—all because Fisk wanted you to. All because you wanted him to want you. So yes, I wanted to stop you." Matt's breath comes in harsh rasps, only Poindexter's hand around his neck seemingly keeping him upright. "And your friend Julie was the only way for me to get through to you. So you're right. I used you."

Matt stops. He isn't afraid for his life, but he expects it to end then, just the same.

But Poindexter's hand falls away.  And slowly, Poindexter retreats into himself, crumpled on the ground and arms coming up to wrap around his own head.

"I hear them," he says, small and plaintive. "All the time now."

Matt leans back heavily against the cool metal wall and tries to breathe. "Them?"

" _The voices._ Her voice. Their voices. _Everyone's. Why is that?_ "

Even after the echo of his cry dies out, Poindexter remains curled up in on himself, made unaccountably small.

Anger, Matt finds, is not constant nor sustaining; the man is damaged in fundamental ways that Matt can’t begin to comprehend, and in the face of it, Matt can't find the rage in himself that wants to claw out, to fight.

Matt remembers the therapist in the tapes–imminently patient, unwavering understanding—and a little boy's voice, frantic and lost, seeking water in drought.

Matt remembers himself at nine, at twelve, wanting the same.

He grinds his free hand against his eyes. The pressure in his chest loosens.

"When I was growing up, after I lost my sight, I started hearing voices."

Matt senses Poindexter start.  Registers his surprise, his attention.

"I could hear everything, everyone around me. It was—unbearable. Indescribable. There was no escape. Everywhere I went. The pain I heard. I wondered why God would do this. Would do this to anyone. To me. I was always, or I thought I was, trying to be good. I couldn’t see anymore. Wasn't that enough? I asked God, but there was no answer. I thought that meant there was no God."

Slowly, ever so slowly, Poindexter's breathing eases.

"But Father Lantom, he—" Matt swallows blood, and tries to breathe in. "He told me that God speaks in whispers. That I should listen more carefully. And I thought all the pains I heard—maybe it was God, trying to tell me that there are other pains out there, and that was bigger than mine. And maybe all this, was for a reason. And it became—better, somehow. Bearable."

Matt hears the rain, spattering against the glass panes somewhere above them. Above their city. Rhythmic.

Even consoling.

"But sometimes. Just sometimes, I still missed seeing. Seeing colors. To know that the ocean that Dad took me to see once is still the color that I thought it was. I wonder what I would give, to see it one more time. "

Matt speaks quietly, until Poindexter's breathing evens out.

Until his own does.

"Ray called you Dex, didn't he?" he asks, when Poindexter's heartbeat calms.

Matt doesn't think he'd answer. But he does. "Yes," says Poindexter, stiffly. "He did."

"What is it you want, Dex?" Matt asks, far more gently than he's thought he could be capable of.  This time, there is no ready answer. "To kill me?"

Matt coughs. And this time, it doesn't stop for some time.

“What would be the point," Poindexter grits out. "You’re already dying." He almost sounds angry. Even accusatory.

Matt smiles, just a little.

“What’s _funny_?”

Matt might have shrugged if he could move. “Not the first time.”

The thought occurs, _but_ _it_ could _be the last time._

The breath in his chest expands painfully. Even though he'd perilously come close to wanting to end his own life, now Matt finds that, inconveniently, he doesn't want to die.

Sister Maggie's laugh. That mere glimpse of brightness. He knows what it sounds like now, what it feels like—to hear his mother's laugh.

His friends. Foggy, Karen. To find that, after all his best efforts, he still has friends to miss, those who would always come back for him, those who would miss him.

He's in no shape to stop Poindexter. And even if he tries, at the point of failure, he'll be the one turning nightmare into reality—letting Poindexter loose, raging and tearing through the city, with no one to hold him back, no regard to anyone or anything.

Still, there's one thing he could do. Even if it amounts to absolute nothing—

_Try._

Get up, Matty. Get _up_.

Pressure loosens in his hands, in the back of his head. Matt lifts his hand to reach out and hold onto Poindexter's shoulder.

Poindexter's hand involuntarily comes up to meet him halfway, supporting Matt upright.

"I'm sorry about Julie, Dex."

Poindexter stiffens again, but Matt holds onto the grip. "If she'd been alive, things could've been—would've been different."

"Don't, don't talk about h—"

Matt presses on, " _Listen to me_. Find someone who can help. Who will help. You deserve better than what you've been dealt. The people you've killed—they deserved better. But so do you. There are people out there who would've earned your trust and deserved it. Not Fisk, never Fisk, but like Julie."

Matt lets go. When he brings his hand to his mouth, blood wells through his fingers.

The world tilts and sways, and Matt sways with it.

“Shit," Poindexter says, faint and far away.

Matt's wondered before. If you bleed out, shouldn't you feel lighter, not heavier? But he feels heavy, as if there's more of it rushing into his body, weighing him down and rendering him rooted.

Rough hands shake Matt. Once. Twice. Hysterical.

“Wake up. _Wake the fuck up_.”

It fades, like the sound of a seashell held to the ear. The deep hollow. The echo.

It's a lonely sound, Matt has thought once.

He can almost see it now, the color of the ocean.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He wakes up to murmurs of familiar voices.

His chest feels too tight to hold a breath, bones brittle and frail. But he can still breathe and feel, which seems to be a vast improvement from before—

Before. _Poindexter._

" _Easy._ Don’t try to move."

"Matt, _Matt_. Please don't move. You're still in a bad shape."

Matt takes a breath. And two, and let himself be pulled back onto bed. Because it's Foggy's familiar hands gently pushing him back. And it's Karen's voice gently admonishing him.

"Oh god, Matt. If you'd died on us again after going off on your own like that, I would've found you and hit you so, so hard."

His thoughts are muddy, slippery when he tries to hold onto a single thread to pull. But it's Foggy, so it's difficult to hold back a smile. "Foggy," Matt says, weakly, "you know that makes no sense, right?"

" _So hard._ So very hard, Murdock."

"That's what you're countering with, Nelson? That's weak."

"You deserve it," says Karen, unfairly taking Foggy's side. "You scared us. When we heard of the massacre at the hotel, we thought, we thought this time—"

Karen's voice breaks. As always, Matt hates himself for being the one to put them through this again. "How did you find me?" he asks.

"What do you mean?" Karen asks, a frown in her voice.

"We found you here, at your apartment," says Foggy. "You called us, remember? Granted, you didn't say anything, but we came, and found you passed out. Bleeding all over. Did I mention bleeding _all over_? We thought we really lost you."

Matt almost closes his eyes.

Poindexter _. Dex._

Dex is out there somewhere, on his own, with only the voices in his head to keep him company.

Matt needs to find him, and—

And—

But Foggy huffs again, bringing Matt back to earth and grounding him, just like always. "Do that again _, just one more time_ , and I really will kill you myself, I swear."

This time, Matt doesn't hold back his smile. Slowly, with his friends' hands on his, Matt gives into the lull of sleep.

 

 

 


End file.
